The Karate Kid M&M and the Lil' Cowboy

A post in pictures. 'Cause let's be honest, what is there to say about Halloween? You dress up, you walk from house to house begging for candy, and you go home.

I will say that these two are adorably cute in their costumes.

 As you can tell by the look on his face, Gavin is in heaven. Being outside and freely roaming the neighborhood may just be what he lives for.

 Traditional trick-or-treating with the cousins. The best was when Gavin was standing at the back of the pack on the doorstep, all the kids would get their candy and run off and leave Gavin, the lone cowboy on the doorstep. The owner of the house would finally see him and say, "Oh, did this little guy get any candy?" He didn't really care about the candy (other than to hold), he just loved being up at the doorstep with the rest of the kids. You could tell by the way he would chatter with them. I'm not sure what he was saying but I'm sure it was something interesting.

The annual organizing of the loot and trading session.

My poor pumpkin got stomped on. A disgruntled trick-or-treater, I suppose.

And here's a walk down memory lane. A very short lane since Chad and I have only dressed up twice in 13 years of dating/marriage. One time was when we were dating, and apparently that was when I could somehow fit into my roomate's girl scout uniform she wore when she was 11 years old. And the other time was a year after we got married. Next year it's on...we're dressing up.

Apparently I had more to say about this Halloween than I thought.

Ethan started 4th grade this week. Where has the time gone?? He's now officially on the big kids side of the playground and he's officially too cool to hug me good-bye on the first day of school. Although he may have been too cool for that a few years ago. He's making his own lunches for school now. Today he was going to put cereal and milk in his thermos until I reminded him that it'd probably be totally mushy by lunchtime. He agreed, so now he's eating dry cereal from his thermos for lunch today. Bet you're jealous.

After going back-to-school shopping he put together his different outfits and what he thought would look good together. He even layed them out on the floor. This is the first year he's actually cared that much. He even got skinny jeans this year which I guess are the thing to get. Which is funny they're called skinny jeans cause on him they're totally loose. He not only had to tighten them from the inside but he also needs to wear a belt with them. So much for "skinny" jeans.

These are two of his good buddies who also happen to be in his class. Again, they're in 4th grade, so they're a little too cool to smile in this picture. But he came home saying that his teacher is the best he's ever had. It'll be a good year! We love you Ethan!

Then there's this little guy. Or shall I call him my little duckling. It doesn't matter what he's doing, if he senses that I'm leaving the room he'll pop up and follow right behind me. I sometimes feel like a mother duck.

He also keeps me really busy. When he's sleeping, I really just think of that time as the time he's recharging his batteries. He's 18 months now and he's becoming quite the character. His nursery teacher at church calls him a little goat because he climbs on everything. He's also become really attached to his binkys and if you'll notice from these pictures, a lot of the time he has one binky in his mouth and he'll stick his finger in the hole of the other and walk around everywhere with it. Then he'll switch them out and put the one on his finger in his mouth and the other one goes on his finger. He's got quite the system. He's calls them "didi"s. He climbs on the backs of chairs, the coffee table, the couches. Luckily he hasn't figured out how to move chairs to climb higher but I know it's just a matter of time. He enjoys giving us a heart attack when he perches himself on the arm of the couches. It's so scary. But really, he thinks it's funny when we tell him "no" and jump up to grab him. He'll fling himself back on the couch and laugh. Pulling things out of any drawers and cupboards is one of his favorite things to do. If he hurts himself and I react and make sure he's ok, he'll usually reenact what he just did and do a fake cry. It's very entertaining. It's also cool to realize how much he's understanding. When I tell him we need to change his diaper he'll walk right to his changing table or when I tell him he needs a bath he'll try and take off his shirt and walk to the bathroom. It's really fun to watch. Needless to say we LOVE him to pieces, he's very entertaining, and he definitely keeps us on our toes.

A Bed With a View

We've had a lot of fun guests come visit us this summer. Usually some of those said guests get to crash on the floor and couches of our family room. When this happens a dilemma usually presents itself. What do I do when Gavin wakes up at 6:45am and the rest of the house is still sleeping? I can't in good conscience let him roam free and awaken everyone can I? 

This brings me to my bed with a view (and what a sweet and beautiful view it is). Here's how the morning goes: I drag the high chair into my room, get Gavin situated with a simple early morning breakfast of a Nutri Grain bar and a sippy cup of water (sippy cups of milk are not allowed in my room since it will most likely be chucked to the floor and milk  will be splattered all over my carpet. That's a big no no.). I will then proceed to get back into bed. If I'm lucky, after he's done with his breakfast he'll allow me to put him on the floor where he is welcome to pull all the books off the bookshelf as he pleases while I crawl back into bed. He'll eventually make his way to my side where he will successfully climb onto my bed. That will last just a little while until he makes me get on the floor with him. After he tires of being cooped up, that is my queue to go out to the family room and sick Gavin on all the unsuspecting sleepers. This usually entails, but is not limited to, climbing all over them, hitting their heads, getting ahold of their mobile devices, and stepping on their pillows to more easily climb onto the couches. And that's our morning while we have guests.

 But what lovely guests they are! Here is Chad's mom, his sister Rachel, and Rachel's 3 kids. They came for a week long visit filled with all types of water events. Including a lot of swimming and sliding down water slides and floating the river. What fun we had. Come again guests! (Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of Chad's mom Judy and her two sisters when they came to visit a couple weeks prior).

Back From George

 We started out our trip to Utah by meeting up with our favorite friends at one of our favorite places to eat. Zupas.

The most memorable moment of that stop was when we were getting out of our car, a homeles man asked me for money. After giving him a buck...and actually feeling like I should have probably given him more, although I wasn't too happy about being solicited...he wasn't but 30 feet from us when he started talking on his cell phone. Times have changed! Any guilt I felt for not giving him more money quickly went out the window.

 After staying the night with our favorite friends we headed up to Heber City to meet up with a bunch of blood relatives I hadn't seen in probably 15 years. Many of which I hadn't met before. These were family members from my dad's dad side. It was great to see and meet everybody, but I will say chasing a 16 month old all day wasn't super conducive to meeting and conversing with long lost relatives.

Then Ethan, Gavin, and I (Chad unfortunately couldn't come with us because he had to get back to work), along with most of my family headed down to St. George for a week. This picture = St. George. I know St. George is known for its hot temperatures and red rock, but to me, this is St. George because when we're there we rarely leave this resort. So to me, St. George means palm trees, green grass, condo and pools.

So if you're at all curious about what we did the whole week in St. George, this is it. Swim. Hang out in condo. Eat. Swim. Play Quadominoes. Night swimming. Late night movies. Repeat.

And here we are at Zupas on the return trip home. We have officially come full circle. Courtney didn't get to go the first time around and I'm always happy to oblige.

Got milk? Actually, it should be, Got Wisconsin Cauliflower Soup? BTW You must try Wisconsin Cauliflower Soup at Zupas. So, so yummy. Even a baby loves it).

Gavin wins the prize for barely sleeping on the 10 hour trip home. 35 minutes was all he'd do. 5 minutes on the first leg. and 30 on the second. Not sure who was sadder about that, him or me.

Ramblings of a Very Spotty Blogger

Lessons
A few weeks ago I found myself quoting to my 9 year old, "it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." When I started my sentence and said, Ethan, there's a quote..." Chad interrups, "What? All dogs go to heaven?"

For some reason the very thought of Tito getting lost or dying was pushing Ethan into a tailspin. He just got so sad one night at the very thought of it. That's when I had to go back in my memory bank and pull out that very poignant quote. Not bad eh?
Visit from Grandma
Chad's mom came for a visit the end of April which is always a treat. Whenever she visits we have certain traditions.

1. A visit to the temple with my mom and then lunch at Great Harvest afterwards (didn't do the temple thing cause it's closed and didn't get to do lunch but did buy some yummy bread from there which is also a tradition).
2. A trip to the mall to visit her favorite store Christopher and Banks. This time my mom came and we tried to help her find a new dress for her to wear to my nephew's weddding. My mom couldn't be any pickier on what she buys for herself. But that's a whole other post.
3. Grandma Judy happily stays with the kids while I do an errand or two. So convenient.
4. She and I spend most the time just hanging out and chatting.
Role Reversal
I'm just going to come out with it, my parents are getting old. I've especially watched my dad age even more so the last couple of years. He is 77 so I don't blame him. It has been interesting to watch because I always thought he'd live forever unless for some reason he choked on a bunch of vitamins. My dad's a health nut and that was always the family joke. A little cynical I know. We found out pretty recently that he has Parkinsons and he's got Prostate Cancer for which he's receiving radiation right now. He's a homebody and tends to want to stay pretty close to home. He doesn't like to drive far and has my mom drive most places. He also tries not to drive at night. He has his shows he doesn't want to miss. Etc, etc. So that leads me to this story:

On a Friday night a month or two ago Chad and I and the kids were going to stop by and visit them. It was around 6pm. We called and there was no answer. Called a little bit later and there was still no answer. I called them Saturday morning for some reason and there was still no answer, which I thought was kind of odd because usually at least one of them would be home. Then it became a challenge for me and I called them a couple more times thoughout the day. No answer. Around 7pm that night I wasn't too far from their house and I called again. No answer. I decided to go check their place out. It was all dark, no car. I was a little relieved the car wasn't there because I was having visions of finding a dark house, with the car, which in my mind meant carbon monoxide poisoning. (I know sometimes, my mind skips to the worst). Even with the car gone I was still getting worried. Where were they? It was now 24 hours and I couldn't get ahold of them. Keep in mind my dad's a real homebody and being gone all day is really out of character. I call my sister in law to see if they'd seen or talked to mom and dad. She said she hadn't. By then she took the reins and called my other siblings to see if they'd seen or talked to them. No one had. Around 9 my brother and sister in law went to my parents house. Checked the computer and saw they hadn't been on it since the day before, saw that their mail was still in the mail box. Very odd for them. They checked the calendar and saw that they had "Bogus Basin" on it for Friday. Bogus Basin is the ski mountain 45 minutes away. When they called me and told me, my first thought was 'Oh crap, they drove off the mountain.' My second thought was, 'But, there's no way they would have driven up that mountain.' By then they'd gotten the Bishop involved and he said there was a singles event for church at a church nearby (my dad's calling is with the singles - weird, I know, for a 77 year married man, but oh well). My brother and his wife and their 12 year old headed over to that church. Apparently there was a singles dance going on. They walk into the gym and see my dad out on the dance floor. Don't worry, my mom was nearby. By this time it was 10pm. They didn't leave the dance that night until 12 midnight. My dad was so proud of himself. Apparently his new Parkinson's medication was taking affect. After it was all said and done it was pretty humorous, but at the time we were pretty worried about them. Good to know my dad's still got it. He's always prided himself on being a great dancer. And don't worry, they got a big lecture about not telling us where they were.

BTW, GOOD NEWS and total sidenote: My mom just found out last week she is still cancer free!! Woohoo!
Fashion Statement

Off the shoulder pajamas for baby.
Bed Head

If only you could see the bed head in all it's glory. But you get the jist. This was after a 3 hour nap. Aren't I lucky?
Easter

Annual Easter egg hunt with cousins.

Precious.

Back ON

I've been OFF blogging. What I mean is, I don't read them, and I don't even think about writing on mine. That type of Off. Until yesterday when I read a few of my friend's blogs and caught up on their lives and it reminded me that I miss my blog. At least today. I'm not totally sure how I'll feel tomorrow. As I've thought back about what's been going on the last few months I realized I have a really bad memory and can barely remember what happened last week let alone last month or two. Pictures didn't help since they're pretty much all of Gavin sprinkled here and there with other family members and random pictures Ethan takes of pretzels and clouds and such.

Nonetheless here is a little timeline:

January and February: Ethan and Gavin's birthdays (That's about all I can remember)

March 1st: Chad started at a new law firm. A really promising firm that he's excited about. I know we've said this about his last 3 jobs but this time I really think he'll be there for the long haul. For the record, he really isn't a job hopper. There's always been a really good reason for the switch in firms. Anywho...

The rest of March:

• Ethan lost a tooth and a very tenacious wart. Very exciting times for Ethan.
• March 20: Gavers pulled himself up for the first time. Yay! And nay. Yay cause he's progressing in his abilities and nay because that means his reach is a lot longer and wider. The more to get his hands on.
• I won a major battle this week. It was me against the ants. They found their way into MY kitchen (how dare they) and that means war. The battle was won with Windex and tape and a lot of tenacity on my part.
• I've found myself deep in the throngs of babyhood, crawlinghood, keeping things out of baby's mouthhood, and just keeping baby out of harms wayhood, which I would call Guardian Angelhood. It's tiring but fun and wouldn't have it any other way...hood.
• Oh and how can I forget, this week we paid off our final credit card debt. We have no car debt. Now we're down to student loans and mortgage. It was a small but very satisfying victory.
• Last night Chad and Ethan had a spontaneous birds and bees talk (without me, sniff...sniff) and his reaction was, "That part's really gross."
• And of course there is always a lot of daddy and Gavin play time. (Wish these pics were bigger, but you get the jist)

And that's us in a nutshell.

Birthday Boy!

Gavin is one year old today! I can't believe a year has already passed since his birth. He has been our little bundle of joy and we feel very grateful he's part of our family.

Gavin has made much progress this past year:

• He's more than tripled his birthweight. That takes a lot of work! Can you imagine tripling your weight in one year??
• He sits.
• He crawls.
• He eats solid food.
• He's grown 8 teeth.
• He claps and waves bye bye.
• He knows the signs for "milk", and "more" and is learning to use them in context.
• When you say "So big!" he raises his hands above his head.
• He says many words: Mama, Dada, nana, baba, and all those other sounds babies make.
• He says "doggie." He even barks like a doggie
• He sings! When I sing he sings with me. LOVE. IT.
• He loves to laugh.
• He gives us big, open mouth, slobbery kisses on our cheeks.
• He's got a lot of hair. He's already gotten two haircuts.
• He explores. He's busy. His daily chore: taking the dvds off the shelf.
• He likes to tease and loves to get a reaction. And when he does, he'll make sure he does it again and again.

That's a lot of progress in one year! Chad and I were talking about what we should get him for his birthday and Chad suggested he'd be happiest if we just got him a wastebasket with a few tissues in it. :)

Checkin out the first snow

Like father, like son

For a child their birthday is exciting because they get to be another year older and they get to celebrate with parties and presents. For me their day o' birth is the day I reflect on their birth and how they changed my life forever. I've been thinking a lot lately of Gavin's birthday.

This is his Story:

On February 16th, 2011 around 5pm I got a text from the birthmom that said 'My water broke I'm heading to the hospital.' I wrote back, What????? I'll meet you there.' She wrote back, 'Not too soon I haven't even packed yet.' I was in the middle of browning meat for tacos that night. I paced around my house a couple times then went back and finished browning my meat. All the while my mind was reeling with excitement and a little bit of panic. In true Wendy fashion, I hadn't even packed, even though the birthmom was going to be induced the next day. That was going to be that evening's project. My water broke 3 days early with Ethan and I wasn't packed then either. It's the procrastinator in me.

After I finished the meat and felt a little calmer I called Chad with the news. He was still at work. Ethan was at a friend's house. My carpets had just been cleaned and were wet. And I couldn't think straight. I was able to think enough to grab Ethan's pillow, a change of clothes, and a toothbrush. I'm not even sure what I packed for Chad and I. We had to go back home a couple times just to get stuff for us.

I went and picked Ethan up at his friend's and took him up to Courtney's house. Chad was meeting me at the hospital. I'm pretty sure I showed up at the hospital even before the birthmom. Somehow the 4 of us - BM and her friend, Chad, and I ended up at the elevator to go up to triage at the same time despite the fact that we'd all come from different places. It wasn't how I imagined it. It was kinda humorous and I must say, a little awkward.

Then the waiting began. We waited in the triage waiting room. Then she got admitted and we waited in another waiting room. We had gotten to the hospital at about 6pm and by 11pm they were able to get us into a hospital room meant for adoptive families. The BM was still at a 4 so we knew it'd be a while. So we got comfy in our room and watched some tv. I fell asleep around 12 midnight and woke up at 1:30am. We had been keeping in touch with the BM via text and we hadn't heard from her in a while. When I woke up I was feeling very anxious, not knowing how she was doing and what was going on. My stomach hurt with anxiety and I had to get out of the room. So Chad and I wandered down a floor and looked in at all the babies in the nursery. It was strange to think our baby would be joining his fellow birth cohorts soon. We wandered down to the 2nd floor where the BM was in labor and delivery. We talked to her nurse to find out how she was doing. She had just checked her and she was still at a 4 and the nurse was hoping she'd have the baby by the time she got off work at 7am. Knowing it'd be a while til she had the baby, we wandered back up to our room and changed back into our jammies. Literally 10 minutes after we had gotten back in our room the BM texted and told us to come down, she was about to push. All the excitement and panic returned. This was it, we were about to meet our baby. We rushed down there and I went into the room with the BM and her two closest friends who'd been with her the whole time. Chad wandered around the hall while he waited.

Being in the room was very surreal. I couldn't believe it was actually happening. I couldn't believe I was there. I couldn't believe I was about to meet my baby. I was feeling emotional but made sure to keep it in. I didn't want to start crying quite yet. I stayed up by the BMs head as I promised I would. As she started pushing, one of the friends told me to look as she was able to see his head crowning. I peaked and then stepped back and held back the tears. Although, I may have shed a tear or two at that point. I can't remember. With another push the friend told me to look as Gavin's little face had come out. And that's when I lost it. That's when the tears just started flowing. Even when I talk about that moment now, I cry. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life. To watch Gavin be born is a complete gift I will always cherish. Not all adoptive parents get to be there at their child's birth and I feel so grateful I got to be there for that very moment that he entered this world and took his first breath. He was born on February 17 at 5:06am.

As the doctor held him and cleaned him up a little, the two nurses in the corner who were waiting to check his apgar and all his vitals, motioned for me to go over there. I stood there in awe, just watching as they did all the necessary testing. They wrapped him up and I followed them out into the hallway where I held him for the first time and where Chad was waiting. It was amazing and so surreal. We followed the nurses up to the nursery where he had his first bath and we fed him his first bottle. I loved being physically well. I loved being able to be there for all his firsts. We spent the next day or two in the hospital where Gavin barely left our side. He spent most his time with us in our room. We just held him and loved him and bonded with him. Courtney brought Ethan to meet him that morning. To watch Ethan as he got to meet his brother was such a special moment. You could just feel the love. We LOVE our little Gavers!! Happy Birthday sweet baby!